More eyes

I saw my eye doctor last week.  I am officially scheduled for cataract surgery---hoo--friggin'--ray.  It consists of large amounts of office visits, prep visits, pre visits, post visits, and follow-up visits, which, of course, means large amounts of co-pay goodness.  Also, I have a new issue--glaucoma!!  Not full blown glaucoma, but something that the doctor called "suspicious" measurements, so she wants to get a baseline measurement before we do surgery, which means that January is going to be very, very busy, and I will be seeing a lot of this women.  Seriously, like, a lot. Like, almost once a week a lot for about 9 weeks.

Still, I think it's worth it.  Eyes.  They're kind of important.

I missed the PKD Walk again this year, which makes me feel guilty, like always.  There was a lot on our collective family's plate, though, so, we skipped it.  I didn't even make a donation (hanging my head in shame).

It's not that I don't appreciate the PKD Foundation, or the great folks who plan the walk.  I do, so very much, and I know how much work goes into it.  I also know there will a come a time in my life when I will want to get more involved.  That time is just not quite right now.  And is it bad that I want to kind of ignore my kidneys while I still have the luxury of doing so?  I have a couple of things in life I still want to accomplish before these babies fail, so I'm filling my plate with those things.

On a sad note, we lost our golden retriever puppy last month.  My 11 year son was walking the dog, and the dog chased after a squirrel, getting loose from my son's grip.  The dog chased the squirrel right onto a road, where he was hit by a car.  Luckily my son was too far behind the dog to see the accident, although he did come on the scene moments later, and he did hear the thud.  The dog died at the emergency vet about 3 hours later.

It was a rough week at our house after that.

Still, life goes on, and although my kids miss the dog, they are learning to come to terms with it.  We had some lovely people do lovely things for us, including giving us a book about dog heaven, and the DVD "All Dogs Go To Heaven".

That is one friggin' weird show, I tell you.  Nice of our friend to loan it, but still.  Weird.

I'm writing this entry at 1am because I'm having a hard time sleeping.  Insomnia, it's the worst.  I usually get it when I'm stressed, and unable to mitigate that stress.  Such is the case tonight.  Again, there are some heavy things on our plate---not bad things, thank goodness, just heavy, but it makes us busy and, yup, a little stressed.

(Just re-read that last sentence and realized that it sounds like I'm suddenly speaking in the royal "we", or talking like Gollum, "yes, we're stressed precious, so stressed by the nasty kidneyses...". I'm not trying to be royal or Smeagol-like, I promise, just referring to the things my family and I have going on.)

(Now that sounds like I'm being cryptic about trials.  I'm not.  Our lives are not cryptically difficult, they are normal and ordinary.  My kids are healthy and happy, just busy, and I'm mostly healthy and maybe mostly happy, depending, but I too am busy with normal ordinary stuff.)

(This entry is rapidly declining in literary value.  I'm going to bed.)